Today we celebrate the Sunday of the Trinitarian God, Pentecost. Tomorrow
we remember the outpouring of the Holy Ghost (Holy Spirit). Today the
Christian belief revieves its crown: the Trinity: Father and Son and the
Holy Ghost, the Three-personal God, one God in three hypostasis.
Today we can venerate a very beautiful icon, “The Trinity” by the
Russian iconpainter Sergey Rublev. An icon that is the tiara of all
Christian art of painting on the brow of the Bride of The Lamb, the
Church. The message of this icon is the Gospel itself: “For God has so
loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes
in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
Rublev lived (1360-1430) in dark and bad times of the history of the
Orthodox Church, but he was able to love. If he hadn’t loved, he hadn’t
been able to paint this icon, because, “He who does not love does not know
God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8). No man has seen God and it is not
possible to make an image of him. It is not possible to paint the Father
or the Holy Spirit, only the Incarnate God, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Only a Trinitarian God can be love. When there is love between two,
there immediately is a presence of a third: the Love itself, and it is
invited to the two persons and they will be three. Genuine love does not
exclude, it opens up, it invites the third. It is not possible to love
alone. And to exclude the third is not the innermost essence of Love. Love
is always Trinitarian.
God is love.
God is Trinitarian: Father and Son and the Holy Ghost.
The Bible tells us that God created the light, the firmament above the
water, the herb of grass, seed, stars, the sun and planets, the birds,
creeping things and animals. He created with His commanding words: Let
there be! And it was so and it was good.
But before the creation of man something happens: instead of commanding
He starts talking: “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our
likeness” (Gen 1:26). God has respect for man already before He creates
him. This respect is reflected in the Gospel of this Pentecostal day when
the second hypostasis of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, says: “if anyone
thirsts, let him come to Me and drink” (John 7:37). It is not a commanding
word, it is not “let it be”, it is the same love, that invites us, the
love, that once in the beginning was discussing about the creation of man
to God’s image and likeness, in love and for freedom. This invitation is
to be found in the beginning of The Holy Scripture, and in the “Trinity
icon” by Rublev, we can see that there is a door open in the icon, to the
table of the Kingdom of God and we can hear it in the last book of the
Bible: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice
and opens the door, I will come and dine with him and he with Me”
(Revelation 3:20).
The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost sometimes reveal themselves
as angels, for example when the Three-personal God visits Abraham and Sara
at the oak of Mambre ( Gen 1:18).
In the icon the three angels are listening to each other. Three divine
faces are turned towards each other, they are questioning, waiting and
answering in a humble way. They are talking about the creation of man to
God’s image and likeness. They are also talking about man’s task:
“Dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of heaven, and over
every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen 1:28). We are to take
care of the creation. And after this the Trinity takes the decision and
“God made man; in the image of God He made him: male and female He made
them. Then God blessed them” (Gen 1:27). He blessed them and gave them
freedom, total freedom. He respects man and therefor He rather stands as a
beggar before man’s soul than destroys man’s freedom and integrity. There
is a sorrowful mood in the “Trinity” icon and a little bit of reproach.
Why? Because sorrow and reproach are in the structure of freedom. Why?
Because it is possible to misuse the freedom and in that case the one who
gave the freedom feels sad and the one who misuses it feels also sorrow.
When the freedom is misused the giver of freedom has an attitude of
reproach toward the misuser (who said that you were naked, Gen 3:11) and
even the misuser has an attitude of reproach toward the giver (the woman
you gave me). Man is free to hide from God and the history of mankind is a
history of God’s looking for man: Adam, where are you? God loves His
creation so much that He became man in Jesus Christ, our God. He gave His
life for us. “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s
life for his friends” (John 15:13). This kind of love is always
self-sacrificing, through true love makes the cross to shine, because the
Father is the crucifying love, the Son is crucified love and the Spirit is
victorious love.
God visited Abraham in the Oak of Mambres. They dined. Today the Oak of
Mambres is here in the Church, because the table of the Kingdom of God is
here. Some of you have come from far away to the table of the Kingdom of
God, but now you are near the Eucharist. You are not strangers nor
visitors. You are at home, because where we are with God, there we are at
home.
Abraham said to the visiting angels: “O Lord, if I have found light in
your sight, do not pass by your servant” (Gen 18:3). Do not pass by us
today! No, He will not pass by today. And there always is a free place at
the table. You see that there is an opening, a door opened to the table of
God. if anyone thirsts, Jesus says in the Gospel of this day.
And not only today. Don’t be worried.
The invitation is not only for this day of Trinity. This invitation is
repeated in the book of Revelation, the last Book in the Bible: “Behold, I
stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door,
I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me” (Revelation
3:20).
Amen!
F. Benedikt |